Final Words
by HotaruGFC
Summary: WARNING SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 214 What I would like to see happen after the events of Ch 214, anything else will spoil the chapter if you haven't read it. Some hidden YamiXChar. Also, not all characters are listed due to spoilers.


Yami stood open mouthed as William began firing out questions at the boy who had once been their mentor. He couldn't wrap his mind around the fact Julius stood before him, much less could he follow the rapid fire line of questions William asked.

But the boy before them was indeed Julius. The mana was the same, as was the enigmatic smile and kindly eyes. Only he was shorter now, younger, with a slip of paper for a grimoire.

"How?" He croaked as he finally found his voice. The boy gave him a look which said he had already explained, but he would do so again if needed. It was a look with which Yami was very familiar.

The boy opened his mouth to explain, but Yami shook his head and embraced the boy, feeling a part of him crack. He also wanted to punch him for making him... feel so much, but managed to control the impulse.

"I'm sorry I worried you, Yami. I'm sorry for leaving like I did." The voice was young, but held the weight of years of familiarity.

Yami stepped back and let him go. He swiped the back of his hand across his face as he composed himself.

"Yeah, well, if you knew this would happen why did you say all those things?"

"I wasn't sure if it would work, or how. Besides, I meant what I said then."

"But..."

"The next generation is ready. You are ready."

"Not me." Yami shook his head.

"Nor I. Not after what I've done." William looked at the ground.

"But my time is over. And do you really think the people would take me seriously? A scrawny kid with a flimsy one page grimoire?" The boy Julius shook his head. "No. This is now my time. A time to walk the path I had to deny myself the first time."

"Did we disappoint you so much, Lord Julius?" William met the young boy's eyes.

Julius shook his head and placed his hand on the scared man's shoulder.

"Quite the contrary, William. The two of you are the things I hold most dear. I am so proud of you both, seeing the men into which you have grown."

Yami wiped the back of his hand across his face again.

"William, your kind heart is powerful, and is your greatest gift. But we all stumble and fall. Sometimes we fall more than we thought possible, but you have the power and the heart to atone for your sins. I know you will do your best."

William nodded, as tears openly fell down his face. He landed heavily on the ground as his legs gave way beneath him. Heavy sobs wracked his body. Yami watched him with a strange sort of revulsion. Julius was offering the man who had stabbed him a chance at redemption, a chance Yami did not think he deserved.

"Yami, you have so thoroughly embodied my ideals and have built on them to create something I never imagined. You turned a bunch of misfits into a family, free of discrimination and hatred. Your open mindedness will be needed to build the future, a future for all people."

"What else can I do but keep serving in my own way? Since you picked me up, it's all I've known."

The boy's smile was so much like the patient smile Julius would give him that it hurt.

"But I think your family isn't quite complete yet."

Yami raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's like you have a bunch of kids, but no partner of your own. I gave up on finding a partner myself as I raced to the top. And it was lonely, Yami. Extremely lonely. I don't wish that loneliness on anyone, least of all a man who is my brother, my son, my friend."

Yami rolled his eyes, despite the tears he couldn't keep from falling.

"Why are you talking like you won't be with us still, old man?"

"I'm not sure I want to go back,Yami. Not yet anyway."

Yami looked at the ground as his world seemed to shatter around him. For half of his life he had known Julius, had looked up to the man. Despite the distraction of the battle,Yami had come to accept that he had lost Julius. But now, well, he had still lost him, only not in the way he was prepared to accept.

"You deserve to be happy,Yami." The boy's voice was quiet, and not quite like a boy's at all. "You deserve to have someone who supports you fully, unabashedly, someone who loves you."

Yami flicked his eyes up to the boy's face. Julius started into the distance, like he was looking somewhere only he could see. Despite the long shaggy hair and the youthful countenance, Yami could see the silhouette of the man who had been his father, brother, friend.

"You know who I'm talking about, don't you?" Julius looked over at him then. But Yami could think of no one. Vanessa had her infatuation, but he had never thought of her as anything more than his sister in arms. She certainly hasn't held his attention in a romantic way, even if she was objectively beautiful. She was too young, he thought. And the rest of the girls in the squad were even younger...

He must have looked confused, because William even rolled his eyes.

"Are you serious? Do you really not know?" The once masked knight asked him.

"She's had a thing for him for years, and with all the teasing, I guess I had assumed he was flirting with her." Boy Julius said over his shoulder to William.

Yami wrinkled his brow for a moment, trying to figure out who they were talking about. He teased everyone, so the clue didn't help much. But they had said she, and Yami only knew a couple of other women, well only a couple they all three would know.

"Charlotte?" He couldn't believe he was even suggesting the possibility. Everyone knew she hated men, and him in particular. Still she was more plausible than the snoring wonder. The matching grins on their faces showed he had guessed right.

"Yes, Charlotte." Julius grinned, and was that a slight blush on his cheeks? The feeling must have shocked him as he pressed the backs of his hands into the reddened flesh and stared at Yami wide eyed. "I had hoped to have stored more time so I wouldn't have to go through puberty again... well, this is going to be awkward."

Yami couldn't help but chortle. Even William chuckled and smiled a bit.

"Really? You think she?" Yami was still skeptical.

"Yes, really." William cut him off. "I never realized you were so dense."

"I am not. Well maybe a little, but she's always been so... standoffish? And I tease everyone, you golden masked asshole, though I guess you will need a new nickname now." Yami could feel his revulsion boil into anger.

"Oh how about kingslayer?"

"Not funny."

The air turned cold as Yami stared at William, his eyes narrowing.

"But, you are also not wrong." William added. "If death is what awaits me for my role in all this, I will gladly accept it at your hand, Yami. It would be the only just way."

Yami put his hand on his sword and loosened it in the scabbard. He looked at William for a long hard minute, debating the ramifications of drawing the blade and giving William his justice then and there. The world seemed to stop as he considered.

But then he pushed the blade back into its sheath. A long life of atonement might be a better revenge.

And the world breathed again.

Julius placed his hand on Yami's arm and looked up at him gratefully.

"You will need someone to help you with your grief, Yami. Charlotte has loved you for a long time, whether you know it or not. You should talk to her."

He had planned to talk to her. He had several questions he wanted to ask her-questions about her curse, questions about what had happened that day so many years ago. He guessed this might be another to add to the list.

He had always thought she was pretty, but he had always assumed she could never have feelings for him.

But then maybe he did? Maybe he had always hoped deep down somehow that she might see him as something more, but he had never allowed himself the luxury of the thought, too convinced it was simply a dream.

"Did you know? All this time?" He met the boy Julius's eyes only to be rewarded with that infuriating enigmatic smile.

"Why do you think I sent you to that soup shop all those years ago?"

Yami sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He pulled a cigarette from his pouch and lit it. He sucked in a long drag, held the burning smoke in for a moment before letting it out in a slow exhale.

"I knew you admired her, at least from a distance. I thought, maybe putting the two of you together, something might spark. I never thought it would take this long to produce anything though."

"You are a crafty old bastard, you know that?"

The grin which erupted on the boy's face suited him far better than the mysterious smile of the old man.

"Did she wake up yet? I know I saw the elf spirit leave her." William scratched at his head.

"She was still unconscious when we left."

"Maybe she's waiting for her prince to wake her up?" Julius teased.

"Or maybe she woke up on her own already." Yami countered. The thought of being the hero, of playing that sort of role, made him uncomfortable. Especially when the distressed damsel was someone he admired for their strength, someone like Charlotte roselei.

"Only one way to find out." William said. "We should probably go back anyway." He started walking through the rubble toward where they had left the others.

Yami glared at him, but started walking anyway. He turned back when he sensed the boy who was now Julius had stayed rooted to the spot. The boy stood with his eyes closed and a small smile on his face.

"You go on ahead, Yami. I will be right behind."

Yami stood and looked at him a moment, knowing Julius would not, in fact be following them. He placed his hand, three fingers extended across his heart. Julius's smile widened as if he could see the gesture through his eyelids.

"Don't worry about William, he will atone for what he has done."

"Yes sir."

"And talk to Charlotte, alright?"

"Yes sir."

"And don't tell Marx. I don't want him to worry."

"Yes sir."

"Goodbye, Yami."

Yami lowered his hand and turned away, walking into an uncertain future, with only his own conscience as a guidepost. And he had never been so scared in his entire life.

William was crouched over Charlotte when he returned. His eyes held the same emptiness Yami felt as they met, but something more dwelt in William's expression. Guilt or regret, or something. But understanding too.

"She won't wake up and I don't know why." A red headed girl said as she crouched over Charlotte on the other side, her magic forming a cocoon of life around the sleeping beauty.

"Her body is perfectly fine. She should be awake."

"Maybe it has something to do with her curse?" William offered, using one of his own spells to search her mana for anything unusual, but finding nothing.

"Or maybe, we are using the wrong kind of magic?" He offered with a long look at Yami.

Yami took his cigarette from between his lips and blew out a circle of smoke. He knew what William was suggesting. Had Julius joined them he would be suggesting the same. Yami thought it was stupid, silly, too tied into a fate in which he didn't believe. What they suggested was a fairytale.

He looked at the cluster of people gathered around her. The red haired vermillion girl. William. And the dark skinned woman who had fought so bravely to save her and failed.

She stroked Charlotte's hair back from her face and Yami could tell by the tenderness in her tough how much the woman loved her. She admired her, sure, but she looked at her now as a worried lover, though Yami had never seen anything but professional respect towards the younger woman from Charlotte.

And now that woman was going to be pissed off if he did what had been suggested he do. What he didn't want to do, because it was stupid, what he didn't think would work because he didn't believe in that sort of shit...

Yami knelt next to the woman who narrowed her eyes when she looked at him. But beneath the helplessness, he could see respect in her eyes. Something had changed in the young dark skinned woman through the entire ordeal, and Yami thought maybe things would be alright.

He lifted Charlotte's head from her lap and held her gently.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." He muttered as he looked skyward at the dawn light. He looked back to Charlotte, bathed in its orange glow. She was beautiful, as beautiful as he had ever seen her.

He closed his eyes and brushed her cheek with his thumb. He told himself it wouldn't work, the idea was ridiculous. He braced himself for a quick slap across the face if it did.

He leaned in close to her and brushed his lips against hers. They were cold, lifeless, though he could still feel her presence, her mana within her body.

The idea had been stupid and ridiculous, and hadn't worked. Like he had expected, and now he felt a fool for trying.

A collective grasp sounded around him, which was to be expected.

What he had not expected was the touch of her hand on his arm. What he had not expected was to be kissed back.


End file.
